The beautiful nano details of our world
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0:02 - 0:04So I want to talk a little bit about seeing the world
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0:04 - 0:07from a totally unique point of view,
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0:07 - 0:10and this world I'm going to talk about is the micro world.
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0:10 - 0:13I've found, after doing this for many, many years,
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0:13 - 0:15that there's a magical world behind reality.
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0:15 - 0:18And that can be seen directly through a microscope,
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0:18 - 0:21and I'm going to show you some of this today.
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0:21 - 0:24So let's start off looking at something rather not-so-small,
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0:24 - 0:27something that we can see with our naked eye,
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0:27 - 0:29and that's a bee. So when you look at this bee,
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0:29 - 0:32it's about this size here, it's about a centimeter.
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0:32 - 0:34But to really see the details of the bee, and really
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0:34 - 0:38appreciate what it is, you have to look a little bit closer.
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0:38 - 0:41So that's just the eye of the bee with a microscope,
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0:41 - 0:43and now all of a sudden you can see that the bee has
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0:43 - 0:46thousands of individual eyes called ommatidia,
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0:46 - 0:49and they actually have sensory hairs in their eyes
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0:49 - 0:51so they know when they're right up close to something,
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0:51 - 0:55because they can't see in stereo.
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0:55 - 0:58As we go smaller, here is a human hair.
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0:58 - 1:01A human hair is about the smallest thing that the eye can see.
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1:01 - 1:04It's about a tenth of a millimeter.
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1:04 - 1:05And as we go smaller again,
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1:05 - 1:08about ten times smaller than that, is a cell.
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1:08 - 1:11So you could fit 10 human cells
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1:11 - 1:15across the diameter of a human hair.
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1:15 - 1:16So when we would look at cells, this is how I really got
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1:16 - 1:20involved in biology and science is by looking
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1:20 - 1:22at living cells in the microscope.
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1:22 - 1:24When I first saw living cells in a microscope, I was
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1:24 - 1:28absolutely enthralled and amazed at what they looked like.
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1:28 - 1:31So if you look at the cell like that from the immune system,
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1:31 - 1:33they're actually moving all over the place.
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1:33 - 1:37This cell is looking for foreign objects,
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1:37 - 1:39bacteria, things that it can find.
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1:39 - 1:42And it's looking around, and when it finds something,
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1:42 - 1:44and recognizes it being foreign,
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1:44 - 1:46it will actually engulf it and eat it.
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1:46 - 1:50So if you look right there, it finds that little bacterium,
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1:50 - 1:55and it engulfs it and eats it.
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1:55 - 1:59If you take some heart cells from an animal,
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1:59 - 2:02and put it in a dish, they'll just sit there and beat.
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2:02 - 2:05That's their job. Every cell has a mission in life,
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2:05 - 2:07and these cells, the mission is
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2:07 - 2:10to move blood around our body.
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2:10 - 2:13These next cells are nerve cells, and right now,
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2:13 - 2:16as we see and understand what we're looking at,
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2:16 - 2:18our brains and our nerve cells are actually doing this
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2:18 - 2:21right now. They're not just static. They're moving around
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2:21 - 2:24making new connections, and that's what happens when we learn.
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2:24 - 2:27As you go farther down this scale here,
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2:27 - 2:30that's a micron, or a micrometer, and we go
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2:30 - 2:32all the way down to here to a nanometer
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2:32 - 2:35and an angstrom. Now, an angstrom is the size
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2:35 - 2:38of the diameter of a hydrogen atom.
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2:38 - 2:40That's how small that is.
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2:40 - 2:42And microscopes that we have today can actually see
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2:42 - 2:45individual atoms. So these are some pictures
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2:45 - 2:48of individual atoms. Each bump here is an individual atom.
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2:48 - 2:51This is a ring of cobalt atoms.
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2:51 - 2:54So this whole world, the nano world, this area in here
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2:54 - 2:57is called the nano world, and the nano world,
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2:57 - 3:00the whole micro world that we see,
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3:00 - 3:03there's a nano world that is wrapped up within that, and
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3:03 - 3:08the whole -- and that is the world of molecules and atoms.
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3:08 - 3:10But I want to talk about this larger world,
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3:10 - 3:12the world of the micro world.
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3:12 - 3:16So if you were a little tiny bug living in a flower,
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3:16 - 3:20what would that flower look like, if the flower was this big?
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3:20 - 3:22It wouldn't look or feel like anything that we see
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3:22 - 3:25when we look at a flower. So if you look at this flower here,
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3:25 - 3:27and you're a little bug, if you're on that surface
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3:27 - 3:31of that flower, that's what the terrain would look like.
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3:31 - 3:34The petal of that flower looks like that, so the ant
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3:34 - 3:36is kind of crawling over these objects, and if you look
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3:36 - 3:40a little bit closer at this stigma and the stamen here,
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3:40 - 3:42this is the style of that flower, and you notice
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3:42 - 3:47that it's got these little -- these are like little jelly-like things
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3:47 - 3:51that are what are called spurs. These are nectar spurs.
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3:51 - 3:54So this little ant that's crawling here, it's like
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3:54 - 3:56it's in a little Willy Wonka land.
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3:56 - 4:00It's like a little Disneyland for them. It's not like what we see.
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4:00 - 4:04These are little bits of individual grain of pollen
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4:04 - 4:07there and there, and here is a --
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4:07 - 4:10what you see as one little yellow dot of pollen,
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4:10 - 4:12when you look in a microscope, it's actually made
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4:12 - 4:16of thousands of little grains of pollen.
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4:16 - 4:18So this, for example, when you see bees flying around
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4:18 - 4:21these little plants, and they're collecting pollen,
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4:21 - 4:23those pollen grains that they're collecting, they pack
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4:23 - 4:26into their legs and they take it back to the hive,
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4:26 - 4:28and that's what makes the beehive,
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4:28 - 4:32the wax in the beehive. And they're also collecting nectar,
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4:32 - 4:36and that's what makes the honey that we eat.
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4:36 - 4:39Here's a close-up picture, or this is actually a regular picture
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4:39 - 4:42of a water hyacinth, and if you had really, really good vision,
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4:42 - 4:44with your naked eye, you'd see it about that well.
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4:44 - 4:47There's the stamen and the pistil. But look what the stamen
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4:47 - 4:51and the pistil look like in a microscope. That's the stamen.
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4:51 - 4:53So that's thousands of little grains of pollen there,
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4:53 - 4:56and there's the pistil there, and these are the little things
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4:56 - 5:00called trichomes. And that's what makes the flower give
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5:00 - 5:04a fragrance, and plants actually communicate
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5:04 - 5:10with one another through their fragrances.
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5:10 - 5:12I want to talk about something really ordinary,
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5:12 - 5:14just ordinary sand.
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5:14 - 5:16I became interested in sand about 10 years ago,
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5:16 - 5:18when I first saw sand from Maui,
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5:18 - 5:22and in fact, this is a little bit of sand from Maui.
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5:22 - 5:25So sand is about a tenth of a millimeter in size.
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5:25 - 5:27Each sand grain is about a tenth of a millimeter in size.
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5:27 - 5:30But when you look closer at this, look at what's there.
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5:30 - 5:34It's really quite amazing. You have microshells there.
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5:34 - 5:36You have things like coral.
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5:36 - 5:39You have fragments of other shells. You have olivine.
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5:39 - 5:41You have bits of a volcano. There's a little bit
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5:41 - 5:44of a volcano there. You have tube worms.
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5:44 - 5:49An amazing array of incredible things exist in sand.
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5:49 - 5:51And the reason that is, is because in a place like this island,
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5:51 - 5:54a lot of the sand is made of biological material
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5:54 - 5:57because the reefs provide a place where all these
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5:57 - 6:01microscopic animals or macroscopic animals grow,
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6:01 - 6:03and when they die, their shells and their teeth
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6:03 - 6:05and their bones break up and they make grains of sand,
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6:05 - 6:08things like coral and so forth.
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6:08 - 6:12So here's, for example, a picture of sand from Maui.
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6:12 - 6:15This is from Lahaina,
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6:15 - 6:16and when we're walking along a beach, we're actually
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6:16 - 6:20walking along millions of years of biological and geological history.
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6:20 - 6:22We don't realize it, but it's actually a record
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6:22 - 6:25of that entire ecology.
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6:25 - 6:28So here we see, for example, a sponge spicule,
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6:28 - 6:31two bits of coral here,
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6:31 - 6:35that's a sea urchin spine. Really some amazing stuff.
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6:35 - 6:37So when I first looked at this, I was -- I thought,
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6:37 - 6:39gee, this is like a little treasure trove here.
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6:39 - 6:41I couldn't believe it, and I'd go around dissecting
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6:41 - 6:44the little bits out and making photographs of them.
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6:44 - 6:47Here's what most of the sand in our world looks like.
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6:47 - 6:50These are quartz crystals and feldspar,
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6:50 - 6:52so most sand in the world on the mainland
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6:52 - 6:56is made of quartz crystal and feldspar. It's the erosion of granite rock.
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6:56 - 7:00So mountains are built up, and they erode away by water
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7:00 - 7:02and rain and ice and so forth,
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7:02 - 7:04and they become grains of sand.
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7:04 - 7:06There's some sand that's really much more colorful.
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7:06 - 7:08These are sand from near the Great Lakes,
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7:08 - 7:10and you can see that it's filled with minerals
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7:10 - 7:14like pink garnet and green epidote, all kinds of amazing stuff,
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7:14 - 7:16and if you look at different sands from different places,
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7:16 - 7:19every single beach, every single place you look at sand,
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7:19 - 7:25it's different. Here's from Big Sur, like they're little jewels.
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7:25 - 7:27There are places in Africa where they do the mining
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7:27 - 7:31of jewels, and you go to the sand where the rivers have
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7:31 - 7:33the sand go down to the ocean, and it's like literally looking
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7:33 - 7:36at tiny jewels through the microscope.
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7:36 - 7:40So every grain of sand is unique. Every beach is different.
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7:40 - 7:43Every single grain is different. There are no two grains
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7:43 - 7:44of sand alike in the world.
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7:44 - 7:48Every grain of sand is coming somewhere and going somewhere.
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7:48 - 7:52They're like a snapshot in time.
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7:52 - 7:55Now sand is not only on Earth, but sand is
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7:55 - 7:58ubiquitous throughout the universe. In fact, outer space
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7:58 - 8:01is filled with sand, and that sand comes together
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8:01 - 8:05to make our planets and the Moon.
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8:05 - 8:06And you can see those in micrometeorites.
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8:06 - 8:09This is some micrometeorites that the Army gave me,
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8:09 - 8:12and they get these out of the drinking wells in the South Pole.
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8:12 - 8:14And they're quite amazing-looking, and these are the
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8:14 - 8:19tiny constituents that make up the world that we live in --
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8:19 - 8:21the planets and the Moon.
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8:21 - 8:24So NASA wanted me to take some pictures of Moon sand,
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8:24 - 8:26so they sent me sand from all the different landings
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8:26 - 8:31of the Apollo missions that happened 40 years ago.
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8:31 - 8:34And I started taking pictures with my three-dimensional microscopes.
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8:34 - 8:37This was the first picture I took. It was kind of amazing.
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8:37 - 8:41I thought it looked kind of a little bit like the Moon, which is sort of interesting.
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8:41 - 8:44Now, the way my microscopes work is, normally
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8:44 - 8:46in a microscope you can see very little at one time,
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8:46 - 8:49so what you have to do is you have to refocus the microscope,
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8:49 - 8:53keep taking pictures, and then I have a computer program
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8:53 - 8:56that puts all those pictures together
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8:56 - 8:59into one picture so you can see actually what it looks like,
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8:59 - 9:02and I do that in 3D. So there, you can see,
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9:02 - 9:05is a left-eye view. There's a right-eye view.
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9:05 - 9:07So sort of left-eye view, right-eye view.
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9:07 - 9:10Now something's interesting here. This looks very different
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9:10 - 9:12than any sand on Earth that I've ever seen, and I've
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9:12 - 9:16seen a lot of sand on Earth, believe me. (Laughter)
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9:16 - 9:19Look at this hole in the middle. That hole was caused
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9:19 - 9:21by a micrometeorite hitting the Moon.
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9:21 - 9:23Now, the Moon has no atmosphere, so micrometeorites
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9:23 - 9:27come in continuously, and the whole surface of the Moon
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9:27 - 9:29is covered with powder now, because for four billion years
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9:29 - 9:32it's been bombarded by micrometeorites,
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9:32 - 9:34and when micrometeorites come in at about
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9:34 - 9:3820 to 60,000 miles an hour, they vaporize on contact.
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9:38 - 9:40And you can see here that that is --
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9:40 - 9:43that's sort of vaporized, and that material is holding this
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9:43 - 9:45little clump of little sand grains together.
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9:45 - 9:48This is a very small grain of sand, this whole thing.
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9:48 - 9:50And that's called a ring agglutinate.
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9:50 - 9:54And many of the grains of sand on the Moon look like that,
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9:54 - 9:57and you'd never find that on Earth.
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9:57 - 10:00Most of the sand on the Moon,
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10:00 - 10:02especially -- and you know when you look at the Moon,
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10:02 - 10:04there's the dark areas and the light areas. The dark areas
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10:04 - 10:09are lava flows. They're basaltic lava flows,
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10:09 - 10:11and that's what this sand looks like, very similar
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10:11 - 10:15to the sand that you would see in Haleakala.
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10:15 - 10:18Other sands, when these micrometeorites come in,
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10:18 - 10:22they vaporize and they make these fountains,
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10:22 - 10:24these microscopic fountains that go up into the --
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10:24 - 10:27I was going to say "up into the air," but there is no air --
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10:27 - 10:31goes sort of up, and these microscopic glass beads
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10:31 - 10:33are formed instantly, and they harden, and by the time
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10:33 - 10:37they fall down back to the surface of the Moon,
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10:37 - 10:40they have these beautiful colored glass spherules.
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10:40 - 10:41And these are actually microscopic;
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10:41 - 10:44you need a microscope to see these.
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10:44 - 10:48Now here's a grain of sand that is from the Moon,
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10:48 - 10:50and you can see that the entire
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10:50 - 10:52crystal structure is still there.
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10:52 - 10:54This grain of sand is probably about
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10:54 - 10:57three and a half or four billion years old,
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10:57 - 10:59and it's never eroded away like the way we have sand
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10:59 - 11:03on Earth erodes away because of water and tumbling,
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11:03 - 11:06air, and so forth. All you can see is a little bit of erosion
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11:06 - 11:11down here by the Sun, has these solar storms,
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11:11 - 11:15and that's erosion by solar radiation.
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11:15 - 11:18So what I've been trying to tell you today is
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11:18 - 11:22things even as ordinary as a grain of sand
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11:22 - 11:25can be truly extraordinary if you look closely
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11:25 - 11:28and if you look from a different and a new point of view.
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11:28 - 11:32I think that this was best put by William Blake when he said,
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11:32 - 11:35"To see a world in a grain of sand
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11:35 - 11:38and a heaven in a wild flower,
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11:38 - 11:40hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
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11:40 - 11:42and eternity in an hour."
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11:42 - 11:46Thank you. (Applause)
- Title:
- The beautiful nano details of our world
- Speaker:
- Gary Greenberg
- Description:
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When photographed under a 3D microscope, grains of sand appear like colorful pieces of candy and the stamens in a flower become like fantastical spires at an amusement park. Gary Greenberg reveals the thrilling details of the microworld. (Filmed at TEDxMaui.)
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 12:06
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The beautiful nano details of our world | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for The beautiful nano details of our world | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The beautiful nano details of our world | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for The beautiful nano details of our world | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for The beautiful nano details of our world | ||
Joseph Geni added a translation |